Ron Unz, the man behind the 1998 measure that eliminated bilingual education in California, wants to promote an initiative that would raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour in 2016.

Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle

Ron Unz, the man behind the 1998 measure that eliminated bilingual...

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Ron Unz gets hair and makeup from freelance makeup artist Kadidja Sallak in the green room before participating in a live televised discussion about minimum wage with host Thuy Vu and guest Ken Jacobs, Chair with the Center for Labor Research and Education for the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment December 6, 2013 at the KQED building in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle

Ron Unz gets hair and makeup from freelance makeup artist Kadidja...

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Hostess Thuy Vu, center, does a practice run with Ken Jacobs, Chair with the Center for Labor Research and Education for the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, left, and Ron Unz before a live televised discussion about minimum wage with host Thuy Vu and guest December 6, 2013 at the KQED building in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle

Hostess Thuy Vu, center, does a practice run with Ken Jacobs, Chair...

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Ron Unz, right, gets a mic attached to his jacket by audio engineer Helen Silvani before participating in a live televised discussion about minimum wage with host Thuy Vu and guest Ken Jacobs, Chair with the Center for Labor Research and Education for the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment December 6, 2013 at the KQED building in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle

Ron Unz, right, gets a mic attached to his jacket by audio engineer...

Image 5 of 5

Ron Unz, right, prepares for a live televised discussion about minimum wage with host Thuy Vu and guest Ken Jacobs, Chair with the Center for Labor Research and Education for the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment December 6, 2013 at the KQED building in San Francisco, Calif.

The news would figure to be a godsend to anyone who wants to see low-wage workers make more money: A wealthy Silicon Valley businessman is ready to finance a state ballot measure that would raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

Plus, he's a conservative - somebody who could bend the ear of people who generally don't want to raise the wage above the current $8 an hour.

But the news isn't being received that way.

Instead, advocates are treating it warily because the businessman is technology executive Ron Unz - who ran for governor in 1994 as a Republican and authored a ballot measure four years later that effectively eliminated bilingual education in California.

Unz, who has been out of the political scene for a decade while publishing a conservative magazine and running various businesses, didn't consult anyone - not labor, not low-income advocates not the political consultants or the state's leading politicians - before submitting ballot language that would raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2015 and $12 in 2016.

He said he had kept his plan "stealth" because he didn't want it to leak out. Just before unveiling it, Unz says, he told a friend, "I've got an idea, and it's crazy. You're going to think I'm on LSD."

His take is from a decidedly conservative perspective: Raising the minimum wage would put more money in people's pockets and thus make them less reliant on welfare and other government aid.

The higher pay, he believes, would make minimum-wage jobs more attractive to "Americans" and thus reduce the flow of immigrants entering the country illegally to take jobs no one else wants.

Although Unz's politics are on the libertarian side of conservatism, he describes his proposal in the language of progressives. He calls it an economic "stimulus package" that relies on money from the private sector, not government.

'Corporate welfare'

The current system amounts to a form of "corporate welfare," Unz said. Major chains like Walmart and McDonald's keep their employees' wages low, knowing the government will provide them with food stamps and medical care to compensate for their low pay.

An October study co-authored by researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that 52 percent of the families of fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public assistance programs, compared with 25 percent of the workforce as a whole.

Even the ballot language Unz submitted to the attorney general's office last month sounds like what his fellow conservatives might dismiss as class warfare chatter: "In today's America, the top 1 percent of the population possesses as much wealth as the bottom 95 percent, and such an extreme inequality of wealth is dangerous."

Noting a wave of demonstrations last week by fast-food workers and their allies pushing for better pay, Unz said, "The climate is very positive for this."

Personal perspective

In 1998, Unz infuriated opponents of his English-only ballot measure when he conceded that he had never been inside a bilingual education classroom. His perspective on low-wage workers could be seen as a bit more personal, as he was raised by a single mother who was once on welfare. But that's not why he's doing this, he said.

"I'm approaching this from a policy perspective," Unz said. "I'm sure there will be people that I will be partnering with who can tell stories from a personal perspective much better than I ever could."

Skepticism on left

But some of his prospective partners might need a little convincing to link arms, especially given the 1998 campaign over the bilingual education measure - officially known as Proposition 227, but widely referred to by its critics as "the Unz initiative."

Politically, Smith said, it's odd that Unz would sponsor a ballot measure just months after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill raising the state's minimum wage to $10 an hour - the highest in the nation - by 2016. Other advocates worry that voters might be reluctant to raise the wage floor so soon.

'Illusory' argument

Unz's contention that raising the minimum wage will reduce social service spending is "illusory," said Michael Herald, a legislative advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which advocates for the state's poorest residents.

"We would not expect a huge change in social service spending just based on a $12 an hour wage. That is still just $24,000 a year," Herald said. "These families are still going to need housing assistance and child care to make it on $12 an hour."

"Would people vote for it? That's one thing," Pastor said. "Would people work for it? That's a different thing."

While low-wage advocates remember Unz's past campaigns, however, it's a different story for many low-wage workers.

Derek Sanders, joining other low-paid workers at a rally Thursday outside a McDonald's in Oakland, had never heard of Unz. The Union City resident is busy working 60 hours a week at two jobs - one at Walmart and one at a temporary agency - trying to survive.

"The community needs people who aren't making minimum wage to step up and help," said Sanders, 37. "That is going to help everybody out."